Even In Death
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: OneShot. People die, but real love is forever. Cho reflects on how Cedric hasn't left her. He's bringing her to where he is. Please read and review.


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

A/N: This was inspired by the song Even In Death by Evanescence and the poems of Nicole Blackman. I'm sorry if it's bad, but this is my first try at a Cho/Cedric or a fic of someone thinking about a dead loved one. Anyway, please R/R.

* * *

They tell me I have to move on, that it's been long enough that what happened shouldn't control my entire life. I ask them how they would react? They of course don't know. How could they know what to do? Does anyone really know how to move on, how to act normal when someone they love dies?

Okay, so maybe some people do, but who's to say they actually move on? How do we know they don't just go about the motions and pretend that everything is OK when it isn't? How do we know that they don't put on a strong front and pretend that everything is perfect again, that they've moved on, that is doesn't still rip them apart inside?

Sometimes I wonder why people move on at all. How can you just forget someone you love? How can you act like they never even existed? What does that prove? What does that change? Doesn't it make all the pain, all the tears mean nothing? It won't bring the person back to 'move on' and it won't change the past so what's the point? How can you claim to have loved someone and then just go on a live a normal life when they are dead?

He's under my skin. I couldn't even get rid of him if I wanted to. I feel him everywhere I go, in everything I do. He is following me, haunting me, controlling ever action I make. I hear his voice whispering to me at night, "I love you, forever, you know that." I can feel him hold me when I cry. I can still feel him everywhere, in everything. I can see him in the halls...but no one else sees him. No one else even wants to.

* * *

His grave is a cold monument to a once warm soul. I sit there for hours talking to him. Can he hear me? Or more importantly does anybody believe me when I say he can?

I once slept blanketed in the sheer warmth of his love. It would wrap itself around me and no matter what happened I felt safe, and happy, and free. Nothing could stop me, nothing could hold me down, everything was perfect. But perfect is a lie and perfect fades. I once would wrap my arms around the warmth of his body, now I wrap them around this marker made of stone. I wrap my arms around this marker of stone while I cry and listen to his ghost whisper to me all night. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

* * *

So many people have asked me why I went out with Harry during my sixth year if he still stayed in my mind. I try to answer them the best I can but to be honest I myself don't know. Perhaps I wanted to try to 'move on' with my life and be like every other girl, smiling, laughing, happy, and truth be told I did like Harry. I just didn't love Harry. But maybe that's all just smoke and mirrors. Maybe I wanted to be close to Harry because it would be like being back with the one I loved. They were so alike, both so kind and brave, and I wanted to feel that connection again. Maybe I just wanted to hear it from Harry; hear how he had died in front of Harry, hear what his last moments were like.

Why would I want to know that? Another question I cannot even begin to answer because I don't know why I felt the need to know how Cedric died. OK, so I knew what everyone else did, but I wanted to hear it from Harry's mouth. Some part of me wouldn't let it go until I heard it from Harry's mouth because Harry was there. I didn't care if what he said hurt me. I was already hurting. What more could be done to hurt me?

* * *

Even though Cedric is gone he still haunts me. I couldn't wait to leave school. He floated down the halls, stood in the corners of my classes, whispered to me during tests. I was only one who could see him, the only one who he would appear to, the one he would talk to. The wind sounds like his laughter, my pillows hold his scent, the everything I taste reminds me of his sweetness and his life. Everyone looks like him, reminds me of him. I am haunted.

* * *

No one believes me when I tell them that he's not gone. I tell them he is still here for me, that I see his shadow, feel his touch. "Give me a reason to believe he is gone," I tell them. "Give me a reason to believe that he's not there when I see him. How can I just imagine him? Just tell me that. There is no way. You're wrong."

They took him away from me. They stole away the one good thing in my life, and everyone wants me to forget that but how can I? They call me crazy, tell me that I have to stop clinging on to someone who is gone but they are the crazy ones. I listen to his sweet words and I know that I could never love anyone as much as I love him. I know that he's still here, picking me up when I fall, catching the tears I cry. I don't understand why they can't believe that. I don't understand why they want him to be gone so badly.

I can't love him any less now that he's gone than I did when he was alive. He is still there, still the same sweet smiling face I knew. He still tells me he loves me, lets me know I am prefect, that I shouldn't change. He comforts me, protects me from the darkness. How can I let him go?

Now that he's left he leaves a giant empty space that begs to be filled. I know however that no one can fill that space, because he glides down the halls and laughs in the dark. He cannot be replaced. He won't be replaced. People think if I fill up that space I will be better. But he won't be replaced.

* * *

I find myself alone at night, wrapping myself up in my cold, pale arms. I find myself crying myself to sleep. I find myself wishing for his touch, but I find myself without it. Secretly I find out I am dead inside.

* * *

He knew what he was doing when he grabbed ahold of me. He kissed my cold mouth, held my hands, kissed away my nightmares. I was a dying person, drowning in myself, so he blessed my dreams and kissed away my nightmares to keep me from drowning. "You walk with fire, your eyelashes get singed, and your eyes are burning," he told me. "You breathe in acid. Are you trying to die?" He wanted me to be happy and with him I was.

I was the girl he didn't understand. I was the girl he loved. "She must have been special," they all say. "He loved her like crazy, she must have been beautiful, happy, bright. There must of been a fire inside, but now there's only her cold heart."

Now he whispers to me at night, "You'll survive this, you will survive unlike me, you will be strong and pure and I will protect you. I love you, I love you, I love you."

I'm giving in to him now, I'm fading out like a ghost. Soon I'll be too clear and too crystalline for you to even see me. Soon I'll be the next fading memory, as clear as glass. I'll melt myself like ice and become wind. I'm fading out like a ghost. I'm only half alive, porcelain shattering. I wake up and find I'm still sleeping, dreaming of what life would be like if he were still alive.

But I'm fading out like a ghost. Soon I'll be too clear and too crystalline for you to even see me. Soon I'll be the next fading memory, as clear as glass.

I sit by his grave all night, wrapping my pale arms around the cold marker. I'll stay there with him forever.


End file.
